Chairman of the State Duma of Russia Vyacheslav V. Volodin (R) welcomes National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan on December 11

The host said his country attaches importance to the trip by the NA Chairwoman, during which the two officials co-chaired the first meeting of the inter-parliamentary cooperation committee between the Vietnamese NA and the State Duma of Russia.

With this new cooperation mechanism, the two parliaments will further enhance the comprehensive strategic partnership between their countries, according to him.

Chairwoman Ngan said Vietnam is delighted at the enormous achievements the Russian people have obtained that have helped further raise Russia’s stature in the region and the world.

Vietnam always treasures and is determined to strengthen the comprehensive strategic partnership with Russia in an increasingly substantive manner so as to meet the two peoples’ interests, she affirmed.

The country always views parliamentary cooperation as an important field in the Vietnam-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership, she said, adding that it highly valued the State Duma Chairman’s initiative to set up the inter-parliamentary cooperation committee, which is the highest parliamentary cooperation mechanism of the Vietnamese NA at present.

The top legislator of Vietnam also applauded the mutual support and close coordination between the countries’ parliamentary bodies in the international arena, as well as their active participation in multilateral forums they have organised.

As Chair of the 41st General Assembly of the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Assembly (AIPA), the Vietnamese NA will continue to promote the strategic partnership between ASEAN and Russia, thus helping to raise Russia’s standing in the region for peace, stability and development in the world, she said.

Ngan also asked both sides to increase exchange and cooperation between the parliaments, parliamentary agencies and parliamentary friendship groups; boost the sharing of information about each country’s parliamentary activities; step up coordination in supervising and promoting the implementation of cooperation agreements signed between the two Governments; perfect legal frameworks; an support the countries’ Governments, localities, businesses and people to bolster win-win cooperation.

According to the chairwoman, bilateral economic, trade and investment ties have enjoyed progress since the free trade agreement between Vietnam and the Eurasian Economic Union, of which Russia is a member, took effect in October 2016. Their trade reached 4.5 billion USD in 2018, up 30 percent from 2017, and 3.4 billion USD in the first nine months of 2019.

Meanwhile, partnerships in energy, oil and gas remain an important pillar in economic links, she said, noting that during the visit, Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue held talks with his Russian counterpart Dmitry Kozak to discuss cooperation in this domain and seek ways to tackle difficulties facing each project.

The NA leader also conveyed to the Russian PM the proposal by his Vietnamese counterpart Nguyen Xuan Phuc on telephone talks between the two so as to agree on the principles and advocates to deal with the concrete issues in the bilateral cooperation.

She proposed that in the cooperation mechanism of the Vietnam – Russia inter-parliamentary cooperation committee, the law-making bodies of the two countries accelerate, review and supervise the implementation of the agreements and projects. Besides, authorities of the two countries should consider and expand the permission for their businesses to export agricultural and aquatic products.

The leader stressed that room for economic cooperation, trade and investment between the two countries remains large, and expressed her hope that Russia will increase cooperation with Vietnam in the fields it has advantages and Vietnam has demand.

She thanked Russia for increasing its scholarship for Vietnamese students to 1,000 each year, said she hopes the two legislatures will facilitate the issuance of visas for Vietnamese citizens to Russia provide legal support to the signing, ratifying and implementing the inter-governmental agreement on the sending of Vietnamese to work in Russia.

During the talks, Ngan informed her host of the socio-economic situation in Vietnam, stressing that Vietnam will continue to persistently implement its foreign policy of independence, self-mastery, cooperation and development.

As for the situation in the East Sea, Vietnam highly values Russia’s stance on the issue, under which Russia supports the settlement of the differences by peaceful measures, on the basis of international law, first of all the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, contributing to the maintenance of peace, stability, freedom, safety and security of navigation and aviation in the East Sea; and support to the serious and full implementation of the Declaration on Conduct of the Parties in the East Sea and proceeding to the completion of the Code of Conduct of the sides in the East Sea at an early date.

For his part, the Russian leader held that the two countries are quite able to achieve the goal of bilateral trade of 10 billion USD in the time to come. The utilisation of the Vietnam – Russia inter-parliamentary cooperation committee should be made to assess the outcome of the recent cooperation, he said.

Volodin also stressed that the two sides will try to find out the causes of the decrease in the relations of bilateral trade this year so as to boost the economic relations and trade and investment between the two countries, on the basis of which concrete decisions will be made for the two countries to bring it to the level of 10 billion USD./.VNA